Jim Harbaugh has the Chargers so far ahead of schedule in their rebuild, they might be real playoff contenders

The entire world got to see Sunday night on national television what the AFC has come to realize: the Los Angeles Chargers are emerging as a real-deal power in the NFL. Less than a calendar year after finishing with the fifth pick in the draft and arguably the worst defense in football, the Chargers find themselves as one of the best teams in the league. The arrival of head coach Jim Harbaugh and the health of Justin Herbert has immediately turned the fortunes on this team. With a 7-3 start to the season, the Chargers have already won more games than they did a season ago, still have a lot of room to improve and are a real threat to win playoff games in January. This season really could not be off to a better start.

Their 34-27 win over the Bengals was a clear sign of the progress that they’ve made. They survived the relentless fury of Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins as the Bengals desperately tried to save their season. The Chargers’ defense looked great for the first half, but when it faltered, they were able to lean on their superstar quarterback who is playing lights-out football right now. Herbert made dazzling throw after dazzling throw as the Chargers were able to do what they wanted on offense for the large majority of the game.

The Chargers are inching closer to being locked into a playoff spot. They currently own the No. 5 seed in the AFC playoff race and, with so many teams playing outright bad football, they very well may be able to waltz into the playoffs if they can win a few more games. After their win over the Bengals, there’s no reason to have any qualifiers when talking about the prowess of this football team — they’re just good. The only concern is one critical area the Bengals exposed that shows the remnants of a team that went 5-12 a season ago: their secondary.

Burrow, Chase and Higgins are capable of torching even the best defensive backs that the league has to offer, so it wasn’t necessarily a surprise to see them win big at times against the Chargers’ coverage. This was one area where the Chargers hadn’t really been tested up this point — facing an offense with a truly explosive passing game capable of taking the top off of a defense. With Asante Samuel Jr. out, potentially for the rest of the season, Los Angeles is mostly relying on free agents and late-round draft picks on their rookie deals. That’s probably going to bite them in January, even though Jesse Minter truly has done an incredible job coordinating this defense each week. Horsepower is horsepower, and the Chargers definitely struggled to keep up with the Bengals’ fleet of Lamborghini’s at times on Sunday.

The good news is they still won and continue to win despite the weakness. Harbaugh has done nothing but build winners at every single one of his coaching spots, and the Chargers appear to be next on his résumé. This season, in theory, should be the floor for the Chargers in the Harbaugh era. They still have players to develop and add to the roster who will make their personnel more imposing in the immediate future and allow them to legitimately compete for a Super Bowl. Harbaugh and his franchise quarterback are a real threat to the AFC West moving forward, even to the Chiefs, if this is what it looks like in a rebuilding year.

Up next for these Chargers is a Monday Night Football bout against the Ravens, led by Jim’s brother John Harbaugh, in another HarBowl that will serve as a great measuring stick.